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41. The Lord Speaks to Job

¹ In Hebrew texts 41:1-8 is numbered 40:25-32, and 41:9-34 is numbered 41:1-26.“Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook
   or tie down its tongue with a rope?
² Can you put a cord through its nose
   or pierce its jaw with a hook?
³ Will it keep begging you for mercy?
   Will it speak to you with gentle words?
⁴ Will it make an agreement with you
   for you to take it as your slave for life?
⁵ Can you make a pet of it like a bird
   or put it on a leash for the young women in your house?
⁶ Will traders barter for it?
   Will they divide it up among the merchants?
⁷ Can you fill its hide with harpoons
   or its head with fishing spears?
⁸ If you lay a hand on it,
   you will remember the struggle and never do it again!
⁹ Any hope of subduing it is false;
   the mere sight of it is overpowering.
¹⁰ No one is fierce enough to rouse it.
   Who then is able to stand against me?
¹¹ Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
   Everything under heaven belongs to me.

    ¹² “I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs,
   its strength and its graceful form.
¹³ Who can strip off its outer coat?
   Who can penetrate its double coat of armor Septuagint; Hebrew double bridle?
¹⁴ Who dares open the doors of its mouth,
   ringed about with fearsome teeth?
¹⁵ Its back has Or Its pride is its rows of shields
   tightly sealed together;
¹⁶ each is so close to the next
   that no air can pass between.
¹⁷ They are joined fast to one another;
   they cling together and cannot be parted.
¹⁸ Its snorting throws out flashes of light;
   its eyes are like the rays of dawn.
¹⁹ Flames stream from its mouth;
   sparks of fire shoot out.
²⁰ Smoke pours from its nostrils
   as from a boiling pot over burning reeds.
²¹ Its breath sets coals ablaze,
   and flames dart from its mouth.
²² Strength resides in its neck;
   dismay goes before it.
²³ The folds of its flesh are tightly joined;
   they are firm and immovable.
²⁴ Its chest is hard as rock,
   hard as a lower millstone.
²⁵ When it rises up, the mighty are terrified;
   they retreat before its thrashing.
²⁶ The sword that reaches it has no effect,
   nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.
²⁷ Iron it treats like straw
   and bronze like rotten wood.
²⁸ Arrows do not make it flee;
   slingstones are like chaff to it.
²⁹ A club seems to it but a piece of straw;
   it laughs at the rattling of the lance.
³⁰ Its undersides are jagged potsherds,
   leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.
³¹ It makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron
   and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.
³² It leaves a glistening wake behind it;
   one would think the deep had white hair.
³³ Nothing on earth is its equal—
   a creature without fear.
³⁴ It looks down on all that are haughty;
   it is king over all that are proud.”